“For 19-year-old Brooklyn native Maggie Rosenberg, learning Thai pop songs began as a frustrated attempt to connect with the people of her host country. But the connection turned out stronger than she had anticipated ….

After returning home from a cultural immersion program in Thailand four years ago, Rosenberg taught herself Thai by learning how to sing the country’s pop hits. Today, her covers draw tens of thousands of views, while her original song, the endearing “I Don’t Speak Thai,’ has racked up nearly a million. Most videos feature her strumming a ukulele in her bedroom ….”

20 to 30 million feral cats roam Australia, killing 75 million animals each night. 29 of the continent’s mammals have been lost to extinction, and feral cats are implicated in 28 of these eradications. More than 120 Australian animals are currently at risk of extinction by feral cats, which also spread diseases that affect farm livestock.

These critters are not the mild-mannered moggies British colonists brought with them since arriving in 1788 but ferocious felines weighing up to 30 pounds. The Australian government wants to kill 2 million of these furry furies in the next 5 years.

Hostess, baker of America’s beloved Ding Dongs, Ho Hos and Twinkies, founded in 1930, went bankrupt in 2012. The firm was bought the next year by a partnership led by C. Dean Metropoulos, savior of Vlasic, Hungry-Man, Old Milwaukee and Chef Boyardee food brands. The turnaround king has done it again, for our nation’s iconic dessert cakes:

“Now, the iconic dessert titan is resurgent, selling its golden, cream-filled Twinkies across the world under the name Hostess Brands and turning down $2 billion offers from a pack of hopeful buyers. On Tuesday morning, the company reached its latest peak when Reuters, citing anonymous sources, suggested Hostess would head to Wall Street with an initial public offering that would value the company at around $2.5 billion.”

— “Twinkies are not just back from the dead. Their baker may now be worth billions.” Drew Harwell, Washington Post

“The thing that makes Rivera’s cover great is that he manages to use a rapid-fire combination of drumming, slapping, tapping, plucking, and strumming to play all the song elements at the same time: vocal melody, lead riff, and drum and bass lines.”

Pink plastic flamingo flocked to millions of suburban lawns in Postwar America’s sprawling subdivisions. The bright birds were created by sculptor Don Featherstone in 1957 for Union Products of Leominster,Massachusetts. Mr. Featherstone died last month at the age of 79.